India: Go for Broadband Wireless

Posted by
Sam Churchill
on
January 14th, 2013

The Indian telecom market is among the largest and fastest growing globally, says Telecom Lead, with over 900 million mobile subscribers. It is the 2nd largest telecom market in the world (after China), and third-largest sector in India.

It remains largely untapped for services and applications beyond voice, although it faces challenges in hyper competition; leading to low Average Revenue per User (ARPU), lack of infrastructure, and under penetrated rural areas. These challenges notwithstanding, the emergence of smartphones, 3G-enabled handsets, and introduction of TD-LTE networks promise fast growth in the future.

The middle-class population in India is expected to reach 267.0 million by 2015-16, according to a report by the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER). That population is expected to rise to 547.0 million, with more than 110.0 million households by 2025-26, sparking a rising demand for mobility and related services.

Frost & Sullivan expects that by 2017, the smartphones installed base will reach 361.3 million units and the Tablet PC installed base will reach 23.39 million units, with close to 1.5 Billion telecom subscribers expected in India by 2020.

More than 100 million broadband (HSPA) connections are expected in India by 2014. This will make India the largest HSPA market worldwide within the next two years, surpassing China, Japan and the US in the process.